That's an oversimplification. Zam Zam is not a typical restaurant, or even a typical business... it was more of a community service, operated for the people who prayed at the mosque a block away. It's in a storefront in a strip mall that two years ago was in total disrepair (and seemed borderline abandoned.) They created their business because there was a need for it in their community, but it could never have been sustained if the storefront commanded the kind of rent businesses had to pay in say, Downtown Culver City, or even other areas of Washington.

And the food was so good that other people started coming, and made it semi-viable to be open all week long, but it was never meant to be a fully operational restaurant (and probably wouldn't work as such, economically.)

Also, gentrification has zero to do with race and everything to do with wealth. A new luxury apartment building just went up a block away from Zam Zam. Between that and the new food complex on Sepulveda and Washington (w/ Pei Wei, Chipotle, etc.) clearly the owners of the building realized they could get a lot more than they were getting from the couple making styrofoam containers of biryani for a single congregation of a single mosque. It's textbook gentrification, and it makes me sad because I live in the neighborhood and I loved Zam Zam. And even charging twice as much, they probably still couldn't afford to pay the rents that a Chipotle can pay. That's not a family choice, it's just reality.

Monte Alban is good, but I think Juquila is better. And for Persian, I'd go for Javan on Santa Monica. They definitely deliver to your area, and the lunch specials are around $10. And Sawtelle north of Olympic is great... Tsujita for ramen, Furaibo for Japanese fried chicken, and Kiriko for Sushi (although that will definitely push your $15 limit)

Second the recs for Furaibo and Hurry Curry of Tokyo, and I've heard good things about Sawtelle Kitchen. But if you want ramen you should definitely hit up Tsujita L.A. They just started serving ramen and tsukemen at lunch and both are pretty phenomenal (and can be had for under $10).

I just moved here from NYC too (in Feb.) and Animal is hands down my Momofuku replacement. (Minus the Asian influences, and like molly said there is no cheese plate.) Buffalo "wing" pig tails... bone marrow... foie gras loco moco... oxtail poutine... I could go on and on. The Momofukus were my favorite NYC restaurants... Animal is my fave L.A. restaurant.